By Lookout Staff
November 13 -- Santa Monica College's Emeritus Art Gallery will showcase written and painted works by the school's students during an exhibition that opens Thursday at the school's Downtown campus.
“The Ongoing Moment: Literature and Art from Emeritus College,” a journal/exhibition features the work of students in the memoir writing class led by author Monona Wali and the watercolor studio class taught by artist Catherine Tirr, event organizers said.
An opening reception and special reading will be held from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, with author readings from 5:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in an adjacent room at the gallery at the Emeritus Campus, 1227 Second Street.
The stories in this year’s edition of “The Ongoing Moment” blend personal history with political and cultural history, organizers said.
They include an Iraqi man’s encounter with an Iraq war veteran in a Subway Sandwich shop, a "soulful meeting with Winnie the Pooh at Disneyland" and "the devastated warscape of Germany in WWII."
"The idea of ‘carving order from chaos’ was the underpinning theme of the writing produced in Monona Wali’s Thursday Autobiography class and Catherine Tirr’s Wednesday Art class at Emeritus," organizers said.
In the art class, Catherine Tirr asked her students to "pick an issue that they felt was important to them and to form a collage based on the idea of reshaping and ordering the chaos."
"The students all became very involved and some works went through many iterations," Tirr said. "Torn edges and fragmented collections of images all worked together to create that sense of turmoil. By presenting these fragments as one image, each artist created a uniquely personal sense of order."
This year’s edition of “The Ongoing Moment” features written works by Cynthia Allen, Nancy Arnheim, Stan Bermann, Lois Bostwick, Sara Bragin, Kathleen Carey, Dorothy Chin, Betty Cota, Dorothy Curtis, Judy Davidson, Terry Dicks, Frances Feinman, Linda Fenster, Laurie Forrest, Tony Garofalo, Gerald Gratch, Amy Greenwood, Dinah Hatton, Cornelia Higginson, Leonia Kallir Kurgan, Tamar Levin, Sylvia Lieberman, Femma Mahdessian, Carolyn Maxwell, Nancy McKeever, Rhoda Newman, Ann Pellant, Marilyn Pink, Beth Rubin, Veena Sadana, Joe Samuels, Libby Schwartz, Barbara Spiller, and Marsha Straubing.
Artwork in this year’s edition was created by Michael Anderson, Jill Benham, Angela Boies, Hector Chao, Kay Chatowski, Roshy Farry, Trudy Forney, Linda Freedman, Bernice Glenn, Wendy Hagar, Marcia Harris, Estelle Jue-Clay, Kate Kausch, Betty Kelly, Francine Lucey, Gail Lonseth, Marlotte Lang Williams, Sun Lau, Barbara Milliken, Gisela Mueller, Roman Pecot, Lynette Perkin, Helene Poletti, Paula Ross, Marjorie Grace Sayers, Helen Shlein, Ying Sun, Estelle Tuvman, and Akemi Watanabe.
Copies of “The Ongoing Moment” will be available for purchase at the reception and at Emeritus throughout the week, while supplies last. The cost is $10 per copy.
Founded by Santa Monica College in 1975 to serve the lifelong learning interests of older adults, Emeritus College offers more than 120 free classes and special programs and serves more than 3,000 students each year, college officials said. .
The exhibition runs through January 17. For more information call call (310) 434-4306.
